Tomoaki Sugiyama
(Shizuoka University Library)

The creation of Shizuoka University’s institutional repository (IR) began in FY 2007 when we were selected for the IR Program under the Cyber Science Infrastructure (CSI) of the National Institute of Informatics (NII). I think this makes us one of the late starters among the national universities. The university had specified in a brochure published in March 2008 that the IR would be operated by the library as one of its strategic projects, and the Shizuoka University REpository (SURE) had officially opened on April 1, 2008. During the preparatory period, we focused on advocating to the faculty members. Our library director and the staff members not only gave presentations personally at faculty, department and unit meetings throughout the university but also visited the researchers in their offices. We brought their questions and requests back to the library for brainstorming sessions and responded to them as much as possible.

Shizuoka University’s approach to its IR is based on the idea that “a repository is a living organism.” Researchers and librarians bring up the IR through a process of dialogue; researchers make their research and teaching output openly accessible, and the librarians handle the operational side. The researchers are the protagonists, while the librarians’ role is to ensure that the IR has a trusted status, first with the researchers as a fit place for their current and major work, and second with users as a user-friendly and dependable resource.

As of June 30, 2010, about 53 percent of the university’s current faculty members have deposited at least one item in SURE. (Each item is counted as having one provider; in the case of co-authorship, only the author who has deposited the item is counted.) Thus, although we have barely started digitizing departmental bulletins or have not required mandatory deposit, over half the faculty members have already made their work accessible on SURE. This suggests that our activities on advocating SURE have come to be recognized widely on campus. When faculty members publish articles in academic journals or bulletins, we send them an e-mail requesting deposit with SURE. We do this on each occasion, even if they have given us blanket permission for deposit of all their works, as we believe it is important to maintain regular contact with the individual researchers and listen to their comments. That is what tending a living repository involves, and this kind of communication is the source of energy to make it still more vital. Lately, the faculty members often respond to our requests with the Japanese equivalent of “Sure!” Our day-to-day effort is devoted to making SURE a sure thing for both the research community and the university, so that more researchers would say, “SURE!”

To make an IR a truly vital presence on campus, it is not enough to solve the organizational problems. What is far more important, I believe, is to ensure that the library staff can remain committed to the individual researchers. An IR could be seen as a touchstone of how much a university library has fulfilled its mission of providing institutionally appropriate research support and academic information services.

Some of our repository’s contents are also accessible free of charge at other websites; these are mainly journal articles that have become openly accessible. Recently, our library director and the staff in charge of the IR discussed the significance of depositing material that is available elsewhere. We have concluded that IRs can offer a multifunctionality and flexibility which e-journal platforms lack. IRs can give access to materials, regardless of where they were published or of what type of resources they are. We intend to maximize these advantages to create a system that focuses on the human element, that is, the researchers, and that does more to highlight their major achievements.

The word “repository” can also refer to an ossuary for the bones of the dead, but an IR must never become a graveyard for papers. Our aim is to have SURE serve as an open door that, in various ways, exhibits Shizuoka University and its research community.